Canadian HR Strategy

20 Executive Series Digest hrreporter.com aged to speak up if they are experienc- ing excessive stress or undue pressures at work, said Sousa. ere are also a variety of stress-relieving opportunities for employ- ees including fi tness centres, ping-pong tables and foosball tables. Updating recognition and rewards pro- grams is another issue employers will have to tackle in the years to come. e younger generation of employees coming up at Eli Lilly inspired the company to change its feedback process and rewards system by moving away from its annual awards pro- grams, said McKay. "We said, 'We need to be more sponta- neous with our rewards, we need to have more visibility around the kinds of behav- iours that led to that reward' and we have really modelled ourselves to be a much more real-time provider of feedback, of rewards," she said. "It has become a core part of our business." To tackle all these upcoming challenges organizations will be facing, it's important to have a strong, robust HR function that is heavily integrated into the business, said Sousa. "I joined (OpenText) one year ago and my mandate was to help build that strength into the HR function, make it much more proactive, much more strategic and much more business-inclined," he said. "And fi nding that talent is not always easy." Seamless HR not identical in every firm (Organizational Effectiveness) By Dave Crisp T he chance to hear senior vice-presidents of HR at highly varied organizations talk about how things have been changing — or not — is always tremendously instruc- tive. ree things really stood out from the recent Strategic Capa- bility Network event. All HR operations deal with the same issues. But HR must tailor solutions diff erently to suit varying business and organi- zation needs, cultures and stages of development. e structures and demographics of environments diff er greatly — from Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE)'s almost ex- clusively male, macho, "We love sports" culture to OpenText's 5,500 mostly young employees who are spread out worldwide, operating virtually far more o en than face-to-face, aiming to pull together 100 companies acquired over 20 years. Contrast those further with Eli Lilly's 140-year evolution of the same culture, still referring to "what the colonel (Lilly) laid out for us" so long ago a er the United States Civil War, yet trying to adapt this to keep ahead of change. Despite rapid change and a need to keep up with the latest tech- nologies and structure, organizations have to remember to keep the basics functioning well. Holt Renfrew's foray into ecommerce may be a lifeline into the future, but the core business continues to depend on excellent face- to-face customer service. MLSE is conscious of engaging a virtual audience far beyond the stadium and TV, including Twitter, Facebook and other social media. But key to it all are great athletes and winning sports teams. Like Eli Lilly, OpenText struggles to clarify, unify and main- tain a core culture by reinvigorating it and narrowing it down so it can thrive for generations. ere is a central message in all of this and it's one many com- panies fail to grasp — a culture needs to be coherent, complete and seamless. Every organization faces unique, day-to-day struggles, such as MLSE's diversity issues in including women in what's long been a male culture. at problem doesn't really exist, at least not in the forefront, at Holt Renfrew. Its business, in many ways, is for women, about women and by women. Traditionally, this has meant blind spots may exist in senior management and among employees. " e way we've always done it" is o en held up as values, even though some of those ways are simply valueless artifacts of an ancient, or not so ancient, history. at's why so many organizations are fi nally trying to sort out real values from "We've always done it that way" behaviours — but it isn't easy. If a CEO or senior team members refuse to walk the talk and continue to show favouritism toward particular sorts of people and decisions that don't follow the values, the coherence and seamless- ness of the culture a company is striving for will surely go to pieces. It's great to see more companies realizing this and taking pains to try to iron things out — but we have a long way to go before this is the majority style. Dave Crisp is a Toronto-based writer and thought leader for Strate- gic Capability Network with a wealth of experience, including 14 years leading HR at Hudson's Bay Co. where he took the 70,000-employee retailer to "best company to work for" status. For more information, visit www.balance-and-results.com. Focus on customer (Leadership In Action) By Blair Pollard T he executive panel at the recent Strategic Capability Net- work event came from a range of organizations and in- dustries, yet they are targeting strikingly similar things. Each organization sees a continuing murky economic cli- CORPORATE CULTURE

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